Nairobi to launch pioneering refugee integration strategy
The launch of a refugee integration strategy by Nairobi City County Government (NCCG) this month builds on an ongoing collaboration between IIED and SDI-Kenya, who have been engaging NCCG on ways to support urban refugee communities and their hosts.
Bustling streets of Nairobi (Photo: screenshot taken from the Far Away from Home film)
Kenya hosts approximately 836,900 refugees and asylum seekers, and since the early 1990s has required displaced populations to reside in camps, while delegating its protection role to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Despite this, approximately 13.2% of all refugees and asylum seekers in Kenya live in its capital city, Nairobi.
Recent policy shifts indicate a recognition of the limits of the policy of keeping refugees in camps.
A new Refugee Act, adopted in 2021, makes no mention of camps, and also commits to the protection of refugees, guaranteeing their freedom of movement, right to work and access to financial services, among other rights. However, it leaves the practicalities of implementing the act open.
The government of Kenya’s Shirika Plan – its official response to the act – proposes ‘integrated settlements’ as an alternative to camps. Those policy shifts have potential, but do not provide a way forward for urban refugees who are currently economically, socially and culturally integrated in Kenyan cities.
On 30 April 2025, Nairobi City County Government (NCCG) is launching a pioneering refugee integration strategy under the auspices of the Refugee Act 2021. This builds on the county’s progressively deepening engagement with IIED’s and SDI Kenya’s research with displaced communities in the city over the past five years.
Nairobi offers a sanctuary for refugees
The strategy recognises Nairobi as a place of sanctuary for refugees displaced by conflict, persecution and violence, and describes the city’s commitment to inclusivity, diversity and respect for human life as the “bedrock of [its] social fabric”.
The plan outlines a series of socio-protection measures– including equitable access for refugees to health services, educational services, financial services and help with documentation and registration.
It also presents the benefit of those measures to the city and by extension national government, including meeting targets of achieving 10% annual gross domestic product growth as part of the Kenya Vision 2030 framework.
Susan Kimani, assistant director at NCCG, said: “Nairobi City has gone on a journey. Displacement was the privy of the national government. The Refugee Act 2021 gave devolved city counties, including Nairobi, the space and opportunity to work directly with urban refugees for the first time.”
Kimani, who has been working with IIED for several years on urban displacement projects and was part of the team leading the development of the strategy, added: “We took this on within the community development portfolio, engaging local communities including refugee representatives, then worked with the assembly, then the executive, and now all the city’s departments, to develop a strategy made up of seven components to make this possible.”
Among the activities organised in Nairobi in the lead-up to the strategy launch was a screening of the documentary film “Far Away from Home”, a collaboration between urban refugees, Nairobi-based community filmmakers Koch Films, and researchers at IIED.
The film screening was hosted by Kimani and was followed by a moderated discussion on the challenges faced and contributions made by urban refugees to Nairobi city.
Nairobi’s strategy sets global example
Previous collaborations with SDI-Kenya and NCCG include the Protracted Displacement in an Urban World research project (2020-2024) which generated comparative data on refugee wellbeing and livelihoods to support evidence-based and inclusive municipal action in Nairobi.
Further policy research identified the particular barriers faced by refugee business owners in the city, and an ethnographic and arts-based project documented the stories of refugees in Nairobi.
Dr Lucy Earle, director of IIED’s Human Settlements Group, said: “Nairobi’s strategy sets an important example for refugee host cities in East Africa and around the world. It also highlights the power of evidence-based policymaking and strong local partnerships, such as those between NCCG and our partners SDI-Kenya."
IIIED is now developing further work to support the implementation of the strategy alongside partners SDI-Kenya and the University of Manchester.
Contact
If you have any further questions about Nairobi’s launch of its refugee integration strategy, or IIED’s urban displacement research portfolio, email [email protected].
